Critical loads of acidity and nutrient nitrogen for UK habitats

• Published by: Environmental Information Data Centre
• Last updated: 16 February 2023
• Topic: Not added
• Licence: Other Licence ; View licence information

Summary

The data provide critical loads of acidity, and of nutrient nitrogen for the distributions of UK habitats sensitive to acidification and/or eutrophication. Critical loads have been calculated and applied to UK natural and semi-natural habitats sensitive to acidification and/or eutrophication (excess nitrogen as a nutrient). Critical loads data are available for these habitat types at 1x1 km resolution for the UK. In addition, acidity critical loads are available for 1752 selected freshwater sites throughout the UK. Critical loads are defined as the maximum pollutant load (of acid or nitrogen deposition) that a sensitive element of the environment (e.g., soils, vegetation) can tolerate without adverse harmful effects occurring, according to present knowledge. Habitat distributions are defined from a combination of CEH Land Cover Map 2000 and a number of ancillary data sets (e.g., species distributions, altitude, soils), used to further refine their distributions. It should be noted that the habitat distributions maps and areas provided here and used for UK critical loads research for Defra (a) only include areas where data exist for the calculation or derivation of critical loads; (b) may differ from other national habitat distribution maps or estimates of habitat areas. This may also result in a difference in the total habitat areas mapped for acidity and for nutrient nitrogen critical loads. The data have been generated under numerous Defra-funded contracts that brought together UK experts on the impacts of air pollution on UK habitats. The acidity critical loads data were last revised in 2004 and the nutrient nitrogen critical loads data were updated in 2011. The data are based on methods agreed at national and international meetings and workshops held under the UNECE Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP). Full details about this dataset can be found at https://doi.org/10.5285/299e2779-0787-46bb-9482-03ad474eae27

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• Sensitive habitats where critical loads for acidification and eutrophication were exceeded: 1996 to 2008
• Average Accumulated Exceedance (AAE) of critical loads of acidity and nutrient nitrogen by acid and nitrogen deposition for the UK, 2015-2017
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• Average Accumulated Exceedance (AAE) of critical loads of acidity and nutrient nitrogen by acid and nitrogen deposition for the UK, 2016-2018

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Data links

Link to the data	Format	File added	Data preview
Download the data	N/A	16 February 2023	Not available
Supporting information	ZIP	16 February 2023	Not available

Additional information

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• Added to data.gov.uk: 2022-05-05T18:11:52
• Access contraints: © Crown copyright and database right
• Harvest GUID: 299e2779-0787-46bb-9482-03ad474eae27
• Extent: Latitude: 60.861° to 49.864°
• Extent: Longitude: -8.648° to 1.768°
• Dataset reference date: 2018-08-06 (publication)
• Responsible party: Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (author); NERC EDS Environmental Information Data Centre (custodian); NERC Environmental Information Data Centre (publisher); UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (pointOfContact)
• ISO 19139 resource type: dataset
• Metadata language: eng
• Source Metadata: XML
• Source Metadata: HTML

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